Pricing Strategy

# Pricing Strategy Designer

Design data-driven pricing strategies that maximize revenue, align with market positioning, and scale with the business across B2B SaaS, consumer products, services, marketplaces, and physical goods.

## Contents

- `references/required-inputs.md` -- Inputs to gather before starting (product, market, competition, business context).
- `references/analysis-framework.md` -- The five pricing models to evaluate (cost-plus, value-based, competitor-based, penetration, premium).
- `references/output-template.md` -- Full `pricing-strategy.md` structure to populate.
- `references/best-practices.md` -- Best practices, trigger phrases, and a worked example.

## Workflow

1. Gather inputs. Collect product, cost, market, and competitor information. See `references/required-inputs.md`. If anything is missing, ask before proceeding.

2. Research competitors. Use WebSearch and WebFetch to find current competitor pricing. Look for official pricing pages (search "[competitor] pricing"), G2/Capterra/TrustRadius comparisons, recent blog posts or press releases about pricing changes, and Crunchbase for funding and growth signals.

3. Analyze the market. Determine where the product sits in the competitive landscape using market reports, analyst commentary, and customer reviews that mention pricing.

4. Build the cost model. Fill in the cost structure with the user. When exact numbers are unavailable, use industry benchmarks and note the assumptions.

5. Evaluate all five pricing models. Score each model against the specific product and market context using the framework in `references/analysis-framework.md`. Do not skip a model; even when one is obviously wrong, explain why.

6. Design the tier structure. Create tiers that align with customer segments, create natural upgrade paths, and maximize expansion revenue.

7. Model the financials. Project revenue, churn, expansion, and cash flow under multiple scenarios.

8. Write the strategy document. Generate the full `pricing-strategy.md` following `references/output-template.md`. Use real numbers from the research, not placeholders.

## Key Principles

- Cost sets the floor, value sets the ceiling, competitor pricing sets the context; the optimal price sits between floor and ceiling.
- Design for expansion: build seat, usage, feature, and compliance upgrade triggers into the tier structure.
- Incentivize annual contracts: they reduce churn, improve cash flow, and smooth forecasting.
- Price to retain: a 1% improvement in monthly churn often beats a 10% lift in acquisition.

For full best practices, trigger phrases, and a worked example, see `references/best-practices.md`.